Part 6 (2/2)

The search party marched back in triumph to Lourenco Marques, escorting Rhodes and his companions as prisoners. The companions were placed at once on board their s.h.i.+p.

Herbert Rhodes, now in sorry case, was incarcerated in the fortress.

This, in the seventies, was a horrible place in which to be confined.

The cells were small, dark, and verminous; the flagged pa.s.sages full of man-traps in the form of unexpected steps. I do not know what part of the building the prisoner was confined in, but if his cell were anything like the one from which, in 1874, I helped to carry the dead body of my poor friend Pat Foote, he was not to be envied. However, the durance apparently did not last long. The captive probably made himself disagreeable a thing he could do most effectively. He was, perhaps, found to be an embarra.s.sment. Possibly that potent solver of difficulties, palm-oil, may have greased the bolts of his dungeon so effectively that they slipped back some dark, convenient night. At all events he got away after a comparatively short imprisonment. Nothing has been recorded as to what became of the pint of diamonds.

Herbert Rhodes came to a terrible end. A few years after the event just related, he was living in a hut on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Nya.s.sa. One night, accompanied by a friend, he returned from a journey. Desiring refreshment he found none available except some Johanna rum in an unopened keg. This liquor is extremely strong and highly inflammable.

Rhodes knocked in the bung; some of the spirit spurted out and became ignited.

The keg burst and the contents wrapped the unhappy man in a sheet of flame. After this had with difficulty been quenched, a messenger was dispatched to Blantyre, some forty miles away, to call for medical aid.

I believe it was Dr. Jane Waterston, now of Cape Town, who came to the sufferer's a.s.sistance. But he died in great agony shortly after her arrival.

CHAPTER VI

Big gambling--Von Schlichmann--Norman Garstin--The painter of St.

Michael's Mount--Start for the gold fields--”I am going to be hanged”

Plentifulness of game--Snakes in an anthill--Nazareth--Game in the High Veld--Narrow escape from frost-bite--A shooting match--Lydenburg--Painful tramping--”Artful Joe”--Penalty for suicide--Pilgrim's Rest--Experiences of ”a new chum”--Tent-making--Explorations--The Great Plateau--Prospect of the Low Country--Elands.

I was told the following tale on good authority. Three men held a claim jointly in the ”New Rush” mine. They worked it for about six months, and found a considerable number of diamonds. The weather grew hot and the camp unhealthy; many were dying of fever. Duststorms raged, and the flies became almost intolerable. All three wanted to get away; they longed for the coast and the cool sea-breezes. One of the partners proposed that two of them should go away on a visit and the third stay behind to keep the claim going, the question as to who should stay being settled by lot. Another proposed, as an amendment, that they should toss ”odd man out” who was to own the claim; then each could please himself. No sooner said than done. Three coins spun into the air, and two third portions of a claim, worth even then about 2,000, were lost and won within the s.p.a.ce of ten seconds.

As might be imagined, gambling was very rife. I well remember one night looking on, awe-struck at the magnitude of the stakes, at a game of loo. The play took place at an eating-house called ”The Gridiron,” the proprietor of which was an ex-cavalry man named Richardson. The building was of the usual eating-house type; it had a wooden frame covered with canvas. At right angles to a central pa.s.sage were tables with benches at each side, the tables being cut off from each other by part.i.tions.

At the game in question there were four players: Richardson (the proprietor), H. B. Webb (a noted diamond dealer), his partner Joe Posno, and the celebrated Ikey Sonnenberg. Some idea of the magnitude of the stakes may be formed when it is stated that at one time 1,700 was in the pool.

A man I knew fairly well was Von Schlichmann. He had been secretary to Count Arnim when that unfortunate n.o.bleman was German Amba.s.sador to France. When Arnim fell, the possibilities of the diplomatic career, for which his secretary had been intended, were destroyed. Von Schlichmann was a man of extraordinary strength, and was remarkably handsome in both face and figure. His curled yellow hair was thick, long, and silky in texture. One of his favorite ways of showing his strength was to get four men to grasp handfuls of his locks, each with one hand, as firmly as they could. He would then sway his head round with a jerk, and the four would fall, sprawling, in different directions.

I think it was in 1875 that Von Schlichmann went north and entered the military service of the Transvaal. It was, I know, when preparations were being made to attack Sekukuni. I was one of those enrolled in the expedition that escorted the arms and ammunition for that campaign from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria in the latter part of 1874. So far as my memory serves me, Von Schlichmann arrived early in the following year. But he was killed in one of the attacks on Sekukuni's stronghold. When leading his men a bullet pierced his lungs. He lay exposed on the flat rock on which he fell, waving his sword and encouraging his men to advance to the attack, until blood choked his utterance. One of my best friends, a man named Macaulay, was shot on the same occasion. He received a bullet in the brain from which he, unfortunately, did not die until after several hours of great agony. Macaulay was noted at Pilgrim's Rest as the first in the locality who used dynamite in mining operations.

But I have allowed myself to run ahead too fast, so must hark back to Kimberley, as ”New Rush” had now come to be called.

One of my most intimate friends was Norman Garstin, a man whom to know was to love. Once he nearly frightened me to death. He had a habit of sleeping with his eyes wide open, but of this I was quite unaware.

Returning home late one night I struck a match and saw him lying on his back, his eyes fixed and gla.s.sy. I seized him by the shoulders and, much to his disgust, dragged him into a sitting posture. Garstin was an accomplished draughtsman. His caricatures, which were never ill-natured, and his black and white ”parables” brought him wide popularity in the days when we foregathered.

The Cape Times was started by Garstin in conjunction with the late Mr.

F. Y. St. Leger. I forget exactly when this happened, but I think it was in the late seventies. After he had severed his connection with the Cape Times, Garstin went to Europe, where he studied serious art for several years. I was his guest at Newlyn, Penzance, in 1899; at the time of my visit he was patriarch of the well-known artist colony there. Garstin's pictures, although they have never been ”boomed,” and have consequently not reached public favor, are thought very highly of by other artists. To record that they have been hung in the Royal Academy is like saying of an author's books that they have been on sale in a railway bookstall. Two very beautiful examples of his work which I specially recall are ”The Scarlet Letter” and ”The Lost Piece of Silver.”

Garstin told me a very significant tale. He kept an art school at Newlyn. One day an intelligent young Cornish miner came and asked to be received as a pupil; he at once paid a quarter's fees in advance. Then he informed Garstin that he wanted to learn to paint pictures of St.

Michael's Mount. Garstin, finding that his pupil was ignorant of the very rudiments of painting, endeavored to explain that some preliminary training was necessary; but the young man would not argue the point.

St. Michael's Mount, and nothing else, was to be the subject; all he wanted Garstin to do was to show him how to begin, and afterwards give him an occasional direction.

Canvas, easel, brushes, and paints were all purchased according to a list which Garstin supplied him with. He wanted, he said, everything of the best. A pupil is a pupil, especially when he pays in advance, and when pictures are not as saleable as they should be, so Garstin did all he could to further this particular pupil's desire. The latter was very apt; after a comparatively short time he was able to turn out some daubs, the meaning of which could be more or less recognized.

When he had outraged St. Michael's Mount from one side, Garstin's pupil attacked it from another. St. Michael's Mount at early morning, at high noon, at dewy eve, and at all intermediate hours; St. Michael's Mount in spring, in summer, in autumn, and in winter; St. Michael's Mount lapped by a calm sea, or smitten by spuming waves. He made uncanny progress. Before the second quarter was at an end this remarkable pupil had produced several presentments of the celebrated Cornish excrescence, which were not much worse than average lodging-house oleographs, and were quite as suggestive of their subject as is Turner's celebrated masterpiece. When the quarter came to an end, the pupil announced that he considered he had now learnt enough.

Accordingly he left.

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